Three ways to work the down-payment math — solve for the home price you can afford, the cash you'd need, or your effective down payment percentage.
Know how much cash you have and your target down payment percentage? Find the home price it affords.
Know the home price and your target down payment percentage? Find the cash you'd need upfront.
Know both the home price and your available cash? Find your effective down payment percentage.
It's easy to budget for the down payment and forget that closing costs are a separate, immediate expense on top of it — typically 2–5% of the purchase price, covering things like loan origination fees, title insurance, appraisal fees, and prepaid taxes. Two buyers with identical "cash on hand" can afford very different homes once one properly reserves cash for closing costs and the other doesn't.
Putting down at least 20% of a home's price typically avoids private mortgage insurance (PMI) on a conventional loan — insurance that protects the lender, not the buyer, and adds a real ongoing cost to the monthly payment. It's a useful target, not a strict requirement: plenty of loan programs allow much smaller down payments, just usually with PMI or an equivalent cost attached until enough equity is built up.
Not necessarily. Beyond the 20% threshold, extra cash toward a down payment earns you a smaller loan and lower payment, but that money is no longer liquid — for some buyers, keeping a larger cash reserve or investing the difference is the better trade-off.
Yes — they're influenced by local taxes, title insurance rates, and lender fees, which is why this calculator treats closing costs as an adjustable input rather than a fixed assumption. 3% of the purchase price is a reasonable starting estimate for many U.S. markets.
That's exactly what the third calculator above solves for — plug in your home price and available cash, and it works out the down payment percentage you'd actually land on once closing costs are covered first.
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